Creature of the Walking Dead

No, this slight, silly, forgettable feature is not a spin-off of a certain popular TV series. It's yet another of schlockmeister Jerry Warrens' shameless "cut and paste" jobs: he takes copious footage from a Mexican horror movie, "La Marca del Muerto", removes its soundtrack, adds hilariously moronic narration, and adds some newly shot scenes of his own.

The story has a young scientist removing his grandfathers' body from a mausoleum, using blood and lab equipment to resurrect grandpa, and finds out that - surprise, surprise - grandpa is evil, and he will continue to abduct hapless young victims, and replenish himself with their blood. Meanwhile, in the newly added Warren material, characters basically lounge around and talk about the plot.

Normally, this viewer loves schlock, but this is pretty dull overall. Although there are indications, as usual, that the original foreign film is at least fairly decent, it's all but ruined with the clunky revised soundtrack, and the flatly directed scenes from Warren. This material has dialogue that seems to go on forever, and is not of the slightest interest.

Familiar faces pep things up just a bit. Warren again works with regulars such as Lloyd Nelson, Katherine Victor, and Chuck Niles. Bruno Ve Sota, a corpulent actor and filmmaker who turned up in a fair bit of B movies from the 50s and 60s, is mildly amusing as an inspector who yammers on while getting a massage from Niles' character.

"La Marca del Muerto" does look like it may be worth checking out, due to its Gothic flavours and atmosphere. It's too bad that Warren did it no favours here.

Four out of 10.

A doctor revives the corpse of an ancestor without realising that, before his death by hanging, he maintained his youthful looks by siphoning the blood from young women into his own body. A cinematic cut-and-paste job from Jerry Warren, who bought the rights to what looks like a half-decent Mexican horror movie from 1961, talked all over the foreign-language dialogue, and added a few English language scenes which have virtually nothing to do with the central plot. It's as messy as it sounds - and not in a fun way

Creature of the Walking Dead (1965)

** (out of 4)

The horror. The fear. The terror. Jerry Warren strikes back with another hack job.

This time he takes the Mexican horror film LA MARCA DEL MUERTO and adds voice-over narration, new scenes with American actors and hacks up the original film. The "original" movie was about a mad scientist who discovers eternal life so he kills young women for their blood. The scientist is eventually killed for his crimes but centuries later a relative, also a scientist, digs up his body, gives it a blood transfusion and the old mad scientist is back alive and committing more crimes.

Obviously it's impossible to fully judge the original film since it's dubbed here, edited down and of course there's the new footage. With that said, watching the footage here certainly makes me want to seek out that film because there was some nice moments in it including a rather good looking monster, some nice atmosphere scattered throughout and it has a fairly interesting story. The sets are all rather cheap and silly looking but at the same time that adds a little charm.

Director Warren made some movies on his own like TEENAGE ZOMBIES and FRANKENSTEIN ISLAND. Whenever Warren made movies on his own they were usually downright awful with very little actually going for them. He often bought the rights to foreign movies and did hack jobs like this one here. His most popular was probably HALF HUMAN with John Carradine. So, how is this film? For the most part it's entertaining thanks in large part to the original footage. The narration added here is all rather silly and there's no question that the newly added footage is horrible. As with his other hack jobs, the new footage is just a group of American actors sitting around and talking about stuff.

This is far from being a good film but I think it's a little bit better than awful. I found it on the interesting side even though it is a chopped up version of 'La Marca Del Muerto' with extra footage, dubbing and cutting out scene from the original film.

I am one of the weird people that found Jerry Warren's 'Face of the Screaming Werewolf' strangely appealing - and that is an awful film. 'Creature of the Walking Dead' isn't quite as bad as 'Screaming Werewolf' to me. Something about both films bad films that I like - I think it's the oddness of the films that attracts me.

Creature of the Walking Dead is not a film that horror fans should see - it's one to easily pass up but is watchable for some.

6/10

The usual Jerry Warren cut and paste job. Its like watching La marca del muerto only with long dull scenes of people explaining the new incoherent plot, and of course, its mildly amusing at that. Decent flick for what it is, not boring but really brings down the original film.

btw prepare to hear the theme of La marca del muerto over and over and over and over again. Its a good piece but its just really overused.